An angry federal judge unexpectedly recessed the death penalty trial of confessed al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to consider whether government violations of her rules against coaching witnesses should remove the death penalty as an option. The stunning development came at the opening of the fifth day of the trial as the government had informed the judge and the defense over the weekend that a lawyer for the Federal Aviation Administration had coached four government FAA witnesses in violation of the rule set by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema. The rule was that no witness should hear trial testimony in advance. ... http://abcnews.go.com

A sheriff's deputy who was videotaped shooting an unarmed Iraq War veteran after a car chase will be charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter, authorities said Tuesday. The decision to charge Deputy Ivory J. Webb, 45, was announced by San Bernardino County District Attorney Michael A. Ramos. Sheriff Gary Penrod said Webb will remain on paid administrative leave during the investigation into the shooting of Air Force Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21. "I respect the decision of the district attorney's office," Penrod said. It is the first time the county's prosecutors have filed charges against a lawman for an on-duty shooting. Webb's arraignment was set for Wednesday. If convicted, he could face up to 18 1/2 years in prison...http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/wireStory?id=1696587&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

A 75-year-old woman accused of robbing a bank with an unloaded pistol was arrested after a tow truck driver blocked her in after a short chase, police said. Marilyn Divine of Baldwin said after her arrest that she acted "to help people who are starving to death and nobody cares about them." Police said the robber on Monday walked up to the National City Bank inside the Shop n' Save supermarket in West Mifflin, located about five miles outside Pittsburgh. The robber, brandishing a 9mm handgun, demanded money from two tellers, authorities said. A former bank employee chased the woman's car until police took over and arrested her after a short, low-speed chase. Police said they recovered all the stolen money, which totaled about $5,000. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/07/national/main1379210.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=U.S._1379210

Last Friday afternoon my BBC colleagues and I filmed at the Baghdad city mortuary. A few months ago we would have done it as a matter of course. But now the security situation in Baghdad is so bad that we had to plan our trip with some care. The mortuary has been the subject of a good deal of controversy. The Washington Post reported that 1,300 bodies had been taken there since the upsurge in sectarian violence which followed the bombing of the Shia shrine at Samarra on 22 February. A former UN official said that many of these bodies showed signs of torture and summary execution. By contrast the US commander in Iraq, Gen George W Casey Jr, insisted that there had been no great increase in the amount of communal violence and that the number of deaths was probably around 350. At the mortuary itself, the guards showed us a large refrigerator truck, parked alongside the building, which they said had been provided by the Americans because of the overflow of bodies from the mortuary itself...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4778380.stm

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is to play a greater role in fighting bird flu, becoming a "global clearing house" for efforts to stem the spread of the virus, it said on Tuesday. The United States and the European Union have backed the formation of a what a senior U.S. official called an "emergency operations center" at the FAO's Rome headquarters. The initiative was agreed at a meeting at the FAO requested by the U.S. and EU. Funding for the center will come from a pot of almost $2 billion pledged by wealthy nations at an international conference in Beijing in January. The U.S. would provide experts to help run the center and expects other nations to follow suit. The move follows the spread of H5N1 avian flu into at least 15 new nations over the past month, with cases detected in birds in several countries across Europe and also in flocks in Egypt and West Africa. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1696511

Telecoms giant AT&T has said it expects to cut 10,000 jobs following its $67bn (£38.2bn) takeover of rival BellSouth. The US operator said the staff cuts would be made by 2009 in a move to reduce costs at the combined group. The new cuts are in addition to 13,000 job losses over three years already announced by AT&T, following a previous US telecoms merger. AT&T said on Monday that it would buy BellSouth, creating a US sector giant with a market capitalisation of $165bn. The deal also gives AT&T full ownership of Cingular Wireless, America's biggest mobile phone firm, catapulting the combined group ahead of its nearest US rival, Verizon Communications. Analysts broadly welcomed the news of AT&T's bid, although some questioned whether the company was paying too much for BellSouth. AT&T said the job cuts would represent about 40% of the proposed $18bn cost savings it hopes to achieve from the deal. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4781596.stm